1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to a toner cartridge supplying toner to an electrophotographic printer, and more particularly, to a toner cartridge having an improved guide member, which guides the toner supply.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an electrophotographic printer is an apparatus that forms an electrostatic latent image by scanning light onto a photosensitive medium which is charged to a predetermined electric potential, develops the image with a toner of a predetermined color, and transfers and fuses the developed image on a sheet of paper.
The electrophotographic printers can be classified into a liquid type electrophotographic printer and a dry type electrophotographic printer according to the type of developer. The liquid type electrophotographic printer uses a developer in which a liquid carrier includes distributed powder toner. The dry type electrophotographic printer uses a binary developer including a powder type carrier and a toner or a unitary developer including the toner only.
Also, the electrophotographic printer can be classified into a mono-color printer and a full-color printer. The mono-color printer uses one toner cartridge of black color, and the color printer uses four toner cartridges of yellow, magenta, cyan, and black colors.
FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view illustrating a conventional toner cartridge for the dry type electrophotographic printer, and FIG. 2 is a view illustrating a coupled structure of a guide member shown in FIG. 1.
Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional toner cartridge includes a housing 11 including a toner 10 of a predetermined color, a developing roller 13 that develops an image, a supplying roller 15 that supplies the toner 10 to the developing roller 13, and a guide member 17 that is disposed on a lower portion of the supplying roller 15 to guide the toner supply.
The developing roller 13 is separated a predetermined distance from a photosensitive medium 20, and supplies the toner 10 to the photosensitive medium 20 to form the image.
The guide member 17 guides the toner so as to be stably supplied to the developing roller 13, and is installed on the housing 11 through the coupled structure shown in FIG. 2.
Referring to FIG. 2, coupling recesses 17a are formed on both ends of the guide member 17, and the housing 11 includes a penetration hole 11a for installing the guide member 17 at a predetermined position thereof. The guide member 17 is coupled to the housing 11 using a fixing pin 18. That is, the guide member 17 is disposed so that the coupling recesses 17a correspond to the penetration hole 11a, and is fixed in the housing 11 by coupling the fixing pin 18 from the external side of the housing 11.
Therefore, since the conventional toner cartridge uses the additional fixing pin to fix the guide member in the housing, the number of elements and fabrication costs increase.
Also, since the assembling process is complex, an error in the coupling position may occur when the guide member is installed. Accordingly, control of the amount of toner supplied to the developing roller may be affected, and the printed image quality may be degraded.